Adele was a rescue. When her first owner passed away she came through a friend to live with us. She was beautiful and though she did not have a song like my other cockatiel, Maggie, she still had a lot to say.

We were told she was very old and not to expect her to live much longer. That was six years ago.

Last night she went to her final rest while cuddled in my hands. We are very sad today and will miss her always.

With an awareness of equality for all here is a photo montage of all the animals and pets I have had the pleasure to admire and love in the last two months or so. A WORD TO THE WISE: On the back hill behind our building are some traps for whatever is living in the ground under the building. Stay away from the trap by the air-conditioning unit. That is not a sweet little black and white kitty.

A Manatee at Disney World...one of two currently in residence.

Ducks that were SO ADORABLE.

A beautiful Elephant.

The Lions were out viewing the humans.

The Tigress.

Sputters at his post on my bed. He likes to see everything that is going on in the room.

Daisy Arnold and I have our own special Joyous greeting dance.

The dogs are Buca and Willy...the people are Gary's father and sister.

Nikkers thanks me for putting up the Christmas Tree.

Nikkers gives Sinfonia some love.

Gary with Daisy and Whitney.

Do I really need to say anything here?

Daisy is telling Nikkers to leave her chair alone. Nikkers is laughing in her face.

In no particular order are the most recent projects to make their way through Summit Yarn. One that walked out the door today was a bagful of the Elsbeth Lavold Angora (on sale for $4 a skein) to go home to create the biggest log cabin blanky ever. I can hardly wait to see it…I love when people treat their knitting as their art. Here are the photos:

Something to watch for: a new pattern from Merike Saarniit for socks based on a miter square as the heel and part of the sole!

An amazing and beautiful sweater by my beloved Esther.

detail of headband made by Alicia--buttons from JoAnn fabrics two for $1

Pomona Shawl by Martha Wells, a great pattern choice for this busy colorway...the pattern is by Stephen West and available on Ravelry for sale.

a traditional Santa knit with Angora ( I always have a stash of this special Angora for just this purpose...if you need it just ask).

The stocking continues an obvious family tradition for the newest member of the family. Beautiful!

A new friend joins in the fray on a recent Friday night and makes a request for a new sweater pattern design.

The first of two caps by Jamie using Fibonacci stripes and two awesome colors.

The inverse hat...I love how the colors play on each so differently in each of the two hats.

Lace Lasagna Scarf by Chris...it is finally done and gorgeous!

Three cowls, each requiring about 400 yards of yarn, from More Last Minute Gifts...I am making the pale pink one with yarn from my trip to Purl.

Chris is also still busy spinning...if you look at the opening page on Ravelry you will see two of the Sidekick spinning Wheels now featured at Summit Yarn.

Last minute knit gifts by Alicia...beautiful cable headbands.

My friend Gracie knitting on her Holiday Break.

A once and future sweater knit by Donna years ago and kudos to Jim for keeping his girlish figure all these years!

Even the backside of this sweater has intarsia....just a ton of work!!!

Reversible cabled shawl by Suzy in Artyarn's Rhapsody Light...I want to knit a sweater in this yarn and this stitch. Love it!

Kate Wassel and I have plans for future projects based on this book. I have to go order mine.

"Sushi" evening bag by Alicia! She just turned out one great gift after another this year. Please remember to keep this family in your prayers and heart as they have some health challenges to face.

Snowflake earrings made for my by Jordan Spatt and her mom. I LOVE THEM!!!

Donna sent me this photo from a store today...the definition of IRONY...it is not knit but crocheted....it is titled "The American Collection" but crocheted in China....what can I say--Does the right hand know what the left is doing?

your daily dose of cute....Sputters is such a handsome boy! Pet post to follow tomorrow and there will be a definite emphasis on all my canine friends....I promise.

I hope you found some inspiration here in this post. If you are working on something please come in and share, no matter where you purchase the yarn — I am always interested in your Art. Wishing you all the best with this coming New Year!

Today I finished the bind off on this intriguing shawl. It is currently soaking and waiting to be blocked until it screams (as Franklin has been heard to say). I enjoyed the knitting of this very much but it did require concentration and counting…all the way to the end. I went and looked at Mr. West’s other designs and this is a motif he has utilized before and continues to do well with it (see his HERBIVORE scarf and his TRANSATLANTIC–where instead of a K1P1 “tooth” he grows a K1Garter3 “tooth”–still the same). After TNNA I am looking forward to playing with this motif as well but with some different uses…stay tuned.

close-up view

Here is a close up view. I added a fourth tooth to the central spine and then ran the K1P1 rib right into the final border. Jamie and I debated heavily about this, but having learned a great deal from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts RSC about pattern continuity, this was the right choice aesthetically…at least for me. I have six teeth on each side of the top edge and still a little yarn left over (Jamie it is yours if you need it!).

top edge detail

I love the picot edge because it so keeps to the idea of sharks teeth, constantly filling in one row behind the next forever. The color is perfect for this shawl and there are eight skeins remaining at the studio for anyone who is interested–I am happy to ship. Just email me or call.

Jamie is busy binding off and incommunicado currently. We are ready to roll with the next shawl in this Westknits Shawl club…bring it on Mr. West!

Stephen West is a remarkable up and coming designer and while I hope someday he starts designing garments, for now I am content to follow his explorations of scarves in all manner of shapes, sizes, and being. When he announced his Official Shawl club, I was delighted and immediately subscribed. What was not to like? The first pattern arrived on my birthday!

Jamie and I have been knitting this together and it has been a great adventure. FIRST: Use the stitch markers. Do not try to be brave, they are there for a reason and even I, theHumanLoom, needed them. SECOND: This stitch pattern is awesome and lends itself to all kinds of future variations. I can hardly wait to finish this so I can do some swatching. THIRD: Mr. West would benefit from some technical editing.

It would be nice to know the precise yardage needed…he knit it…he knows the answer to this question. This was not for a yarn company. Come on..come clean with the info!

After the first two bind off rows, some total stitch counts would have been most welcome ( 35 stitches remain after set-up rows 1-3, then Rows 1-4). I can figure out the rest but give me a bone here and something to build on. After each four row repeat (not including bind off rows,) there is an increase of 16 stitches. It would have been delightful to know that after the first bind off, three stitches remain on the Left Hand Needle before the first marker — otherwise this becomes an enormous crap shoot. I counted after each bind off row 1-2 and then built the total stitch counts for each succeeding section from there.

Jamie and I both loved the idea of successive smaller central shark’s teeth and since we had 465 yards we pushed for a fourth tooth (so the first tooth has 10 center pairs of eyelets, the second has eight center pairs of eyelets, the third has 6 center pairs of eyelets and our fourth has 4 center pairs of eyelets). We are also going to let that fourth and last tooth blend right into the final K1P1 rib edging.

I LOVE THE TOP BORDER that Mr. West created for this shawl. Highest Kudos for that! I do not believe there is any other designer or pattern that has been so creative and imaginative to accomplish this feat with a shawl knit from the top out and down. I am sure other designers will be taking their cue from this and attempting to do variations on this now that Stephen West has finally broken through this barrier for us. Thank you Stephen West.

Overall, I give a Six Sheep (out of six) Salute to Mr. West for this pattern. I do suggest to all knitters that you go to Kinko’s and enlarge it 300%. So nice to be young Mr. West. Charting would be a welcome addition to future patterns; but I feel (other than the lack of stitch counts) overall, Mr. West got the job done in the space he gave himself. Well Done and I look forward to your future ideas.

This is Summit Yarn Studio signing off and wishing you all the best of all possible best days!

Best present ever received: noise canceling headphones. Step One: attach to Kindle and turn on any book to Text-to-Speech. Step Two: place headphones over ears and turn on. Step Three: take the best nap you ever had in your whole life. The End.

When I did manage to finally exit the monotone induced coma and return to this world, there was a bagel sandwich (which had waited two hours for me) and chai. After stoking up, I completed a new crochet hot mat and went back to work on Shark Tooth Shawl. Photos follow.

The cats are now too large to summit the tree, which means maybe we will try a few random decorations next year. I hope your Christmas day was restive or at least all that you hoped for.
Loads of Love, Mary Ellen